End o' the Year List...

Aw, shoot. Seems I'm running out of time this year to comment on all the stuff I've seen, so I'll just hammer down and finish my list off, real quick-like...

Pirates of the Caribbean:The Black Pearl- Well, it started out as a ride at Disneyland, didn't it? No reason to ruin the ride for anyone, is there? What, you were expecting some subtext about Imperialism in the 19th century? Worth a rental, certainly...

Hannibal Rising by Thomas Harris - Boy, how the mighty have fallen. A writer who started out from the gate as among the top thriller novelists squanders his considerable skills on a run of the mill revenge thriller. Well, to be fair, cases of Chateau Y'queam don't exactly buy themselves, these days...

Click-Why Adam Sandler's overworked architect doesn't just hit the "pause" button on his literally-universal remote, get all his work done, hit "play", and spend more time with his family, is beyond me. (Besides the fact that otherwise there'd be no movie, that is...)

Cars-Everything I said earlier about "Howl's Moving Castle" by Studio Ghibli goes double for what I think about this movie. The live-action version, "Talladega Nights: The Legend of Bobby Ray" had a few chuckles...

Buddha by Osamu Tezuka-Now that it's out in cheaper paperback format, I have no excuse to not get volumes 3 to six. When you meet Carl Barks on the road, kill him.

Guitar Hero 2-or as I call it, "Kansas-Carry On My Wayward Son-simulator"; I kinda stopped trying to beat the other songs after this one. Actually, my brother got me the full guitar-and-game-disc set for Christmas, which means, since I also have 'Guitar Hero I', that I can now do GUITAR DUELS!! Hot Diggity!

Loco Roco for the PSP- Using the L and R tabs on the top of the PSP, you move a cute, singing yellow blob around a simple world. If your friends catch you playing this, they WILL call you a huge fag. They can fuck off, however, as this game is fun. And you know, the songs are kinda catchy...

The Ultimate Calvin And Hobbes Collection- An X-mas present from my sister. So now I am obliged to name my first kid after her. (She has a unisex name, so that shouldn't be a concern...) Three fat volumes in a wood case gives me all the C+H there is. What in the name of God could I possibly have to complain about in a collection like this? Well, you know me...

I would've liked to see a process of Waterson's technique, say from penciled roughs to full-sized watercolors, but given the reluctant tone of his foreword in the first volume, I suspect it was painful enough for him putting this together in the first place. Bitch, bitch, bitch, you say. Towards the end of the strip's run, the thirty-something Waterson started sounding like an elderly journeyman, sadly shaking his head at today's fallen level of standards. His protracted fight with the marketing people at the syndicate wore out his enthusiasm for the strip enough but at least when it ended, it was on his terms. I don't think we're ever going to see anything on this level of care and craftsmanship on today's funny pages. (Patrick McDonnell's MUTTS comes within the ballpark) but given the renaissance in 'art' comics, never say never...

Grand Theft Auto-Vice City Stories for the PSP-If the GTA franchise is a big fat German Chocolate cake with double chocolate filling, this is the leftover batter in the bowl.

Markosa Publishing presents: Done2Death by Andrew Foley and Fiona Staples-It's kind of a good thing this comic that drives a Hot Topic wooden stake through the 'Goth' subculture is small-time; If Andy and Fee were more high-profile, they'd be facing a Salman-Rushdie style jihad by every black-clad, pale, flabby, HIM-listening geek in North America...

World War Z: the zombie wars, by Max Brooks(son of Mel)-George Romero meets Studs Terkel.

Willams-Sonoma: The food of New Orleans (a cookbook)- Fuck you, I ain't no queer; I just like Southern cookin', is all...

Lost Girls by Alan Moore and Melinda Gebbie- Eeyeah, it's pornography, but I didn't beat off to it, in case you were wondering. (You weren't, were you?)

Downfall- German film depicting Hitler's final days. Now even Germans agree: Hitler was a jerk. Whether Mossolini did in fact, bite his 'weenie' so it did not 'work', is not a matter of public record.

El Topo by Jodrowsky-Yeah, 'shrooms are cool. I don't feel compelled to shoot a movie after eatin' them, though.

Aaaand I'm done. See you next year!

Same coin, different sides...

Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip/30 Rock - So, Studio 60. It is well-written, it is intelligent, the characters relate. I find myself following the various threads in the show's plots and sub-plots. So why am I indifferent to it's inevitable cancellation? Because the way producer Aaron Sorkin portrays the behind-the-scenes at a fictional popular comedy show rings false every step of the way. In the latest episode, network owner Ed Asner reassures network exec Steven Weber that he, himself is willing to fight the FCC on a recent controversy involving their news division. (A soldier being interviewed by a imbedded newsman uttered an expletive on broadcast camera when their position was hit by an RPG. The FCC got complaints, the network is facing a hefty fine.) Steven Weber's character, Jack Rudolph, has offered his resignation as a sacrifice for the network. Ed's character, Wilson White, turns him down, pointing out, "Jack, This is the fight I've waited my whole life for!"

Now. You and I and everyone we know that the people who run a televison network are the most pusillaminous types that ever existed. Why the hell else has television been such a vast, retarded wasteland all these years? In the real world, Jack would be out before the FCC's first phone call was done. The most frustrating thing in watching 'Studio 60' is the way you know all the threads will work themselves out. I've seen enough of 'the West Wing' and 'Sportsnight' to know how producer Sorkin thinks. Let's see, the network bravely fends off the FCC, 'Studio 60' show producer Danny Tripp (Bradley Whitford) professes his love for newly pregnant studio president Jordan McDeere,(Amanda Peet) who,after some initial resistance, returns it,(during a live broadcast, no less) and visiting comic writing legend Andy Makinaw (Mark McKinney) stays on full-time after coming to grips with the death of his wife and daughter. Hell, that last part writes itself:

Matt (Danny's writing partner, played by Matthew Perry): C'mon, Andy. If it wasn't for you, the show wouldn't be knocking itself out of the park these last few episodes.

Andy: I-I dunno, Matt. That fire I had back in the day..It's getting harder and harder to light- Y'know...(he monologues) Sometimes I-I wake up in the middle of the night, and for a split second I think, Oh, thank God. Losing Kate and Andrea was just a bad dream. Then I'll look over at the empty side of the bed, and-and it'll all come back to me, y'know? How can I write about dumb jokes like Nicolas Cage's next job when my life keeps intruding? It all seems so..so..irrelevant.

Matt: Hey, man. (he reaches out to Andy, and rubs Andy's sholder in a friendly manner) This is where you belong. The show needs you. I need you. And you-(he points all around)-you need this.

Andy: I-I just...(his eyes moisten) I miss them, Matt. I miss them so much..(Matt pulls Andy to him, Andy softly weeping on Matt's shoulder. Matt looks a little uncomfortable, but soon comes back to that smug expression we all know and love...)

I wouldn't say I hated it. It's just that the characters in Sorkin's 'dramedies' function the same whether they're behind the scenes at a sports show, the White House, a sketch comedy, a Wells Fargo in nineteenth-century Wyoming, or a space station on the outskirts of Progtron 11x in the year 3030.

As for Tina Fey's show, '30 Rock', it's simply a standard sitcom. However, it's Fey's eye for detail and mood, as well as the aforementioned 'ring of truth' that makes it work. Plus, Fey's character, Liz Lemon, a nerotic single 30-something with no time for a personal life, is a nice antidote to the cute uber-women that you see all the time on T.V. these days. (including Amanda Peet.) I particularly like the dig '30 Rock' took at that standard trope in Sorkin's work, the characters following the camera around the set while they hash out their dillemas:

Liz: (after her and Kenneth, another writer, have been hashing out their problem with Tracy Jordan, their show's star) Um, where are you going? We've been walking in a circle?

Ken: Um, I was following you?

Liz: Well, I was following you!

Ken: Oh. Well, I was going that way. I'll see you later.

Prime Time Animation Special

As I've stated earlier, there are two types of prime-time animated TV shows. There's a) the Simpsons, and b) everything else. So, without further adieu, here's my take on em:

The Simpsons- I was there at the beginning, when it was that "life in hell' guy's hat into the fray of Fox television. At the time, Fox was apparently so desperate for content that they made the bumper scenes of one of the "Tracey Ullman show"(remember her? No?) into a full half hour series. It became incredibly popular right away, on account that there wasn't anything like it before on television. It was also very funny and maintained this standard for a long time. This was owing to the sensibilities of its actual father, an SNL and David Letterman graduate named George Meyer. (If you've ever used a Simpson's quote, he probably came up with the line.)

Over the years, it hasn't gone downhill as much as become the victim of inescapable inertia. In any extended narrative, sooner or later your audience is going to know all they can know about the characters, their story, and their setting, and they're just going to lose interest. It's closer to its end then its beginning; the inevitable simpsons movie is looming. The thing I wonder is, did it ever have a backlash? I recall in the first few years some people I knew were just dismissive of it, but those were the people who didn't watch television anyways. At this point, hating the Simpsons is like hating air. Or as Bart Simpson put it best: "What's wrong with television? It gives us so much and asks of us so little?"

Venture Brothers- Currently my favorite animated show. Season 2 gives us answers to questions that were brought up in season 1 (How can the Venture boys, so naive and accident-prone, survive in their father's world? Who are Dean and Hank's mom, anyway?) and answers to questions we didn't have. F'r instance, how low will Rusty go to line his pockets? (He's running about neck and neck with Eric Cartman.) How much of a schmuck is Dr. Orpheus? (Pretty big a schmuck, really.) Is any cow of classic Saturday morning cartoons sacred? (Nope.) Will Dr. Girlfriend ever find true love? (ha-ha.) It leaves us on a cliffhanger both genuine and anti-climactic. (Is Dr.Girlfriend-well, Dr. Mrs. Monarch, now, actually-carrying Phantom Limb's child?) Oh, by the way, in case you were wondering about those earlier questions... 1) They can't. They're clones. and 2) Brock's predecessor.

South Park- Honestly, I've said all I need to say about South Park in an earlier post. With the finish of season ten, two points I made need to be reinterated: When Parker and Stone have a Libertarian axe to grind, the show suffers. Also, the season's best moments have the kids just being kids.

Futurama- Matt Groning's baby. It took me a while to get into it. My problem was the same as everyone else's. The show looked enough like 'The Simpsons' that you thought you were getting "The Simpsons in the Future", which clearly wasn't the case. Once I came on board, the Fox network in its infinite wisdom passively-aggressively moved it from time slot to time slot so the dropping rating would get it cancelled. I understand that it's been picked up again, but the post-cancellation 'family guy' fiasco leaves me a little skeptical.

Sealab 2021- Adult Swim wiseacres took a forgettable Alex Toth-designed adventure series from the early 70's, and with the judicious use of Flash animation, turned it into a goof fest. Unfortunately, one of the lead cast members, Harry Goz, passed away in 2003. Since then, the show came to a screeching halt. I'd recommend renting seasons 1 to 3, and passing on anything afterwards.

Beavis and Butthead/King of the Hill- A conspiracy-minded individual might think that Mike Judge was being deliberately surpressed by the Powers That Be. Office Space was one of the sharpest satires of the American workplace that I've ever seen, only trumped by the British t.v. series, The Office. The studio involved in its production, however, seemed bound and determined to drop it down a black hole. His last film, Idiocrasy, looks to suffer the same fate. Did Beavis and Butthead piss off that many people in high places? As for King of the Hill, it's more likely to bring a wry smile to my face than outright laughs. I should point out that Judge's take on suburban American values is dead on.

Family Guy/American Dad- When Seth McFarlane came up with 'Family Guy', it was dismissed by most people (myself included) as a lame Simpsons ripoff. After I broke down and starting watching it, It occurred to me that it really wasn't that bad for the first three seasons. One advantage McFarlane had over 'The Simpsons' is that he's not required to have his characters act in an ethical manner to reassure an audience. If hypothetically, Peter Griffin, the head of the Griffin clan in "Family Guy" were to have an affair with another woman, it wouldn't be as much of a shocker if say, Marge was to cheat on Homer. Mainly because 'Family Guy' is as indifferent to its characters' inner worlds as 'The Simpsons' is conscious of its characters' inner worlds.

However, one of the reasons the Simpsons is so popular is that it's world view is meant to reassure the viewers as well as entertain them. With 'Family guy', however, the sitcom family setup is just a framework to hang jokes on. If 'Family Guy's' writers thought about the implications of their setup, the show would become like one of HBO's 'prestige' series, like 'The Sopranos'. Think about this: Brian, the family dog, is witty, articulate, and yearning for a better living situation then he has now. As a result, he turns to alcohol to numb his feelings. Meg, the daughter, is anxious to be accepted by her peer group, but realizes that she has no personality characteristics that make her stand out. Stewie, the super-genius toddler is a latent homosexual. Once you start to delve into the deeper implications of these characters, you realize that depression, homosexuality and alcoholism aren't exactly grounds for broad comedy, which is what 'Family Guy' is supposed to be. A braver and more skilled person than McFarlane could mine these situations for laughs, but you couldn't get something like that on the FOX network. (Maybe the Edward Albee or Tennesee Williams network, perhaps?..)

And after their resurrection after season 3, the writing got even slacker than before. The 'manatee' gag is a symptom of this malaise. Here's an example: One of the pre-cancellation shows had as a plot Meg's attempt to be a 'flag girl' (sort of a sub-cheerleader) on her school's football team. During her first show, some popular teens bombarded the flag girls with raw meat. Later, during family dinner, Stewie serves her some dinner,"in the manner to which you're accustomed", by flinging meat in her face. Upset, Meg runs off crying. Stewie than says, "Come talk to me when you want to learn what cool really is..", then the scene changes to one of Stewie in a tuxedo, sitting on a stool, smoking a cigarette. (He's doing a recital of Elton John's 'rocket man' in the style of William Shatner's performance of it during a science-fiction awards ceremony in the early 80's.) As cruel as I've made it sound here, It's a pretty funny bit all by itself, but if you get the reference to the Shatner bit, it's funnier. It takes the show into a weird left turn, but it still references the plot.

Not so, once season 4 starts up. You could sum up the plot in a short sentence (Brian goes on a date) with the 'manatee' gags stopping the show dead in its tracks. Every gag can be summed up thusly:THIS EVENT THAT I AM FACED WITH IS MORE AWKWARD THEN THE TIME I DID THAT RANDOM EVENT IN THE PAST THAT HAS NO CONNECTION TO MY CHARACTER OR THE STORYLINE OF THIS SHOW WHATSOEVER. OH, AND IF WE CAN STICK A REFERENCE TO 80'S POP CULTURE IN THIS FLASHBACK, THE MORE OBSCURE THE BETTER, SO BE IT. At this point it smacks more of lazy writers than a t.v. show staking its own ground. I suspect that at this point in his career, Seth McFarlane views 'Family Guy' as more of an albatross hanging around his neck than the cornerstone of his professional life.

As proof, I'd point to 'American Dad', which is what McFarlane was working on when 'Family Guy' got cancelled.It's slightly better written, leaving me to suspect that 'Family Guy' is the recipient of any leftover gags that didn't make 'American Dad'. It has 'Family Guy's' improbable cast members: Where 'Family Guy' has the urbane dog and the evil-genius baby, 'American Dad' has the effeminate space alien and the Germanic pet fish. Thing is, once McFarlane came up with them, he didn't give them anything to do, making them largely redundant.

Boondocks- It's a good thing Aaron McGruder is himself black; any cracker coming up with shit this stupid would've got dragged out of his studio by the scruff of his redneck by Jesse Jackson and rightfully tarred and feathered.

Korgoth the Barbarian-This is, in animated form, the barbarian in a post-apocolyptic wasteland comic me and my friends drew in high school. (If you're under twenty-five and reading this, you and your friends probably drew manga crap. You're missing out, my young friend...) And unlike my efforts, it is awesome. When Korgoth (voice of Deidrich Bader from the Drew Carey show, perfect in every way) rips the skin from an aggressor by his pony-tail, throws alcohol on the exposed flesh, then sets it on fire, I howled like a baboon. And so will you. My only concern is that Adult Swim is still on the fence about it's existence as a series. C'mon, Adult Swim! This could be the greatest moment in your lives! What are you, homos? Fuck... If you'll excuse me, I'm now going to put on my jean jacket with my "Iron Maiden" logo sewn on, hop into my Mustang, blast classic "Led Zep" on my ipod and head to the nearest high school parking lot, smoking DuMaurier cigs and looking cool.

Metalocolypse, 12 oz. Mouse, Tom Goes to the Mayor- Kind of an act of aggression against an audience. If we make these shows unfunny, that's funny, right? You get the impression the mindset behind these is like a teenager forced to do a tedious chore around the house. "If I do a bad enough job on this, they'll never ask me to do it again!" Sure showed me, anyways.

Ren and Stimpy: the Lost Years-Series creator John Kricfalusi's constant harping against studio interference with his work has made him a pariah in the animation industry. And not without good reason. When Spike TV brought him on board, their order of 'Do what Thou Wilt' gave him what he wanted all along. Trouble is, John K. can't tell a story to save his life. And imagine the face of the t.v. exec who greenlit him. "It's crap, it's late, and it's over budget? Oh, this was a GOOD idea!" At this point in his career, any producer who considers dealing with him is going to see him as a bigger liability than an asset. All he's managed to do in his professional life is prove to t.v. execs that keeping creative control in their hands was the right thing to do all along...

Robot Chicken- Stop-motion blackout gags using action figures ("For the last time, they are not DOLLS!") as cast members. It's at it's best when it uses the actual B and C-list celebrities to comment on their own status quo. Creators Seth Green and Matthew Senrich keep the pace short and fast. Which is good, since the skits that go over a few minutes get really tedious. I understand that Senrich was responsible for those 'action figure photo-funnies' you'd see in Wizard magazine. Which was the only good part of that particular waste of trees.

SNL TV Funhouse- To me, Robert Smiegel, the creator of 'TV Funhouse' is one of the sharpest minds working in comedy today. He operates by way of a mental judo; he uses corporate entertainment's thoughtless use of catchphrases and hype against it that in a precise way that is fresh and startling. His 'Triumph the Insult Comic Dog' took the piss against such worthy targets as Bon Jovi and 'Star Wars' geeks.

In 'TV Funhouse', he uses the idioms of hacked-out commercial fare to comment on the way entertainment conglomorates force crap down our throats. The throwaway shorts like "The Ambiguously Gay Duo" and "Shazang" are pretty good, too. I'd like to take a moment, however, to highlight a couple of his masterpieces, "Behind the Disney Vault" and "Conspiracy Theory Rock".

"Conspiracy Theory Rock" uses the framework of those old "Schoolhouse Rock" cartoons to depict the connection General Electric and NBC have, and how G.E. exerts pressure on NBC to serve its own interests, contrary to the public good as they are. The thing is, this is the type of information you can get from the Nexus/Lexus database, and not from some nutbag with a website. Not surprisingly, the cartoon is abruptly cut off two-thirds of the way in...

"Behind the Disney Vault" turns around the skeevy stunt Disney pulls when it releases its classic films for a short while, then 'throws them into the Disney vault forever' or at least until Disney releases a new 'special-SPECIAL edition' four months later. Mickey takes two kids into the Disney vault, where they discover that Walt Disney not only froze his own head, but that of Vivian Leigh. (She was already dead!!) Plans for Disney's Civil War theme park (this is true, by the way...) and a bound and gagged Jim Henson (He wouldn't sell!) are also revealed. And of course, the version of "Song of the South" that Jew-hating, HUAC- ass-kissing, union-busting Unca Disney played at parties...(Zip-a-dee-doo-dah! Zip-a-dee-ay! Negros are inferior in every way...)

Four for Wednesday

Superman Returns- Seems more like the sequel to an earlier Superman movie starring Brandon Routh than, you know, a real movie. He's a little too, er, 'pretty' to make an effective Superman, too. Since we're dropped in the middle of the whole story, it's up to us to play catch-up. Superman's speech about 'the father becomes the son' rings hollow, since the whole movie is dependent on us all developing a deep emotional bond with the characters. The trouble is, since these are all new interpretations of the Superman icons, we don't have any chance to develop the connection we need with the characters. Kevin Spacey as Lex Luthor is pretty cool, though. Nobody does passive-aggression and the 'slow burn' in the way he does it. That final scene with him and his gun moll seems more like a bit of business thrown in to please a focus group. Also, the aforementioned gun moll's second thoughts about Luthor's plans doesn't go anywhere, does it? In the original, we at least had Valerie Perrine save Superman's bacon then pleading, "My mom lives in Hackensack"...

That's My Bush-Trey Parker and Matt Stone's homage to cheeseball 80' sitcoms. In watching it's faithful replication of those old sitcom plot chestnuts,(hero has to be in two places at the same time, hero has to get a new job, opposing characters are trapped together to resolve their differences, etc.) I'm reminded of the movie, "Permanent Midnight", starring Ben Stiller. It's based on a true story by a sitcom writer(Jerry Stahl) and his struggle with heroin addiction. I've never seen that movie, but something had occurred to me. Here you have a person stuck in the depths of a grim drug abuse problem which, from all accounts will destroy not just your life, but your personality. Your existence will consist of A) stealing,lying, robbing and selling your body to obtain money to purchase heroin with. B) finding a dealer who is 'holding' and getting the junk. C) shooting up and having a very brief window of respite from the pain and misery your junkie lifestyle has become before cycling back to A. Above.

Now, in "Permanent Midnight", the Stahl character does all this and STILL manages to crank out scripts for "Alf","thirtysomething", and "Moonlighting". Doesn't that tell you all something about the level of standards in television script-writing? As for "That's my Bush", it's funny, but I suspect the premise ran dry about the time they came up with the last episode. Which is fortunate, since 9/11 happened about this time in history, which would put Parker, Stone, and Comedy Central in an awkward position, to say the least.

Casino Royale-Blonde. James Blonde. A reimagining of the Bond franchise, and not a moment too soon, I'd say. Honestly, if they kept going the way they were, Brosnan would've had to fly to Mars without a spacesuit and shoot laser beams from his eyes. In casting Daniel Craig, they've found a Bond closer to the one depicted in Ian Fleming's books ('a face like Hoagy Carmichael') than any of the blandly handsome fellows of the last two decades. Not that Brosnan and Dalton stunk, mind you, but they seemed more like 'placemarker' Bonds than the real deal. Plus, the scripts haven't been this down to earth since From Russia with Love. (If you haven't guessed by now, I'm a Connery-as-Bond kinda guy.) I'll give Craig his day in court, but I'll hold off final judgment on him 'til the next film. Hope they don't re-do 'Dr. No'.

Brick- Film Noir shot as indie film teen drama. It's closer in tone to 'Bugsy Malone' then 'River's Edge'. The thing is, the way it's shot seems more like a conceit than an actual working premise. Two things about the classic Noir drama one must keep in mind: The plot needs a 'gotcha' at the end to tie all the loose threads together("You're good, sweetheart, Real good. But you forgot that in playin' everyone else, ya also played yerself...") and secondly, we need to feel a genuine connection to the characters. There's a reference to an earlier case the protagonist handled on behalf of the 'authorities'(in this case, the school principal) which hints at some lost innocence in him.("I gave you Jerr to see him eaten, not to see you fed.") but the whole story seems more like an exercise by a high-school drama club as opposed to a real story where there's something at stake.

Top Ten List, Number Four...

Silence of the Lambs- Now, honestly. You can't tell me at some point in your life you haven't seen a friend or co-worker putting some kind of emollient on his or her skin and not said, "It rubs the lotion on its skin, or else it gets the hose again!" (And if that person has your sensibilities, they of course responded, "Put the lotion in the fuckin' baaaasket!") Jonathan Demme takes Robert Harris' tightly woven mix of detective procedural and character-driven suspense thriller to give us a movie which deservedly swept the 1991 Oscars.

So, consider the character of Clarice Starling.(Played by the very capable Jodie Foster) When we first meet her, she's unglamourously running through an FBI trainee obstacle field. She's summoned to meet the FBI head of Behavioral Science, Jack Crawford.(Scott Glenn) Note how on the way to meet Crawford, Demme sticks Starling in an elevator surrounded by several male FBI trainees, all dwarfing her. Later on, in a scene set in a rural southern funeral home, she's surrounded by the hostile presence of a crowd of rural policemen. Usually, in thrillers with a female protagonist, she's always given a husband or boyfriend to act as the stable force in her life. (and, y'know, save her bacon in the film's third act...) In Starling's case, Crawford is as likely to use her up as a military captain sending troops to take an enemy hill. While he's a mentor of sorts, Crawford is not the asset Starling uses to track down the killer of young women, Buffalo Bill.(Ted Levine,in a creepy performance) That role goes to a most unlikely candidate...

Hannibal Lecter. He's become a pop icon of malevolence right up there with Dr. Mabuse or Baron Corvo. Lecter made an appearance in Harris' earlier book, 'Red Dragon' (filmed by Michael Mann as Manhunter, and the inferior remake by Brett Ratner.) In 'Red Dragon', Lecter's 'help' caused the protagonist permanent mental, and physical damage. He aids Starling in her search, mainly to show off his considerable intellect, partially to open a door to escape, partially to engage in causing more suffering...and because this monster may be attracted to Starling. Her meetings with him are like watching a feeder bird in a crocodile's mouth.

Hannibal Lecter: I will listen now. After your father's murder, you were orphaned. You were ten years old. You went to live with cousins on a sheep and horse ranch in Montana. And...?

Clarice Starling: [tears begin forming in her eyes] And one morning, I just ran away.

Hannibal Lecter: No "just", Clarice. What set you off? You started at what time?

Clarice Starling: Early, still dark.

Hannibal Lecter: Then something woke you, didn't it? Was it a dream? What was it?

Clarice Starling: I heard a strange noise.

Hannibal Lecter: What was it?

Clarice Starling: It was... screaming. Some kind of screaming, like a child's voice.

Hannibal Lecter: What did you do?

Clarice Starling: I went downstairs, outside. I crept up into the barn. I was so scared to look inside, but I had to.

Hannibal Lecter: And what did you see, Clarice? What did you see?

Clarice Starling: Lambs. The lambs were screaming.

Hannibal Lecter: They were slaughtering the spring lambs?

Clarice Starling: And they were screaming.

Hannibal Lecter: And you ran away?

Clarice Starling: No. First I tried to free them. I... I opened the gate to their pen, but they wouldn't run. They just stood there, confused. They wouldn't run.

Hannibal Lecter: But you could and you did, didn't you?

Clarice Starling: Yes. I took one lamb, and I ran away as fast as I could.

Hannibal Lecter: Where were you going, Clarice?

Clarice Starling: I don't know. I didn't have any food, any water and it was very cold, very cold. I thought, I thought if I could save just one, but... he was so heavy. So heavy. I didn't get more than a few miles when the sheriff's car picked me up. The rancher was so angry he sent me to live at the Lutheran orphanage in Bozeman. I never saw the ranch again.

Hannibal Lecter: What became of your lamb, Clarice?

What impresses me about Starling is her sheer tenacity. It impresses Crawford enough to keep her on the 'Buffalo Bill' case and Lecter is impressed by her to aid her indirectly. (She stands her ground when another inmate at the asylum where Lecter is housed flings his 'baby-batter' at her-EWWWWW!! and Lecter changes his earlier sneering opinion of her.) In Starling's dealings with Lecter, she gains his help by sharing her deep personal traumas with him, knowing his capacity for cruelty on a whim, knowingly offering him her throat. (There's a sample of this when the bound Lecter, facing the kidnap victim's mother, monstrously taunts her anxiety...)

Demme and his cinematographer, Tak Fujimoto, keep the movie shot low-key,like under a cloudy day, de-glamorizing the sets. Check out, also, how canny Demme has most of the other characters when talking to Starling, talking AT the viewer, placing us in the centre of the tension. It's one hell of a departure from his earlier, sweet-natured polychromatic films like "Married to the Mob" and "Something Wild".

My Brush With Fame...(Sorta...)

So, Wednesday I was walking from my place to the supermarket to do some shoppin', as you do. A film crew had set up some craft and talent trailers in front of my apartment for a single day of shooting. They were doing a scene in a nearby record store meant to double as a place in Denver or something. Calgary is nothing if not outstanding in its sheer generic quality of cityscape. I mean, if you had to be placed in a Witness Protection program, I'd suggest Calgary. It's literally the last place on the planet anyone who wanted to 'whack' you would look. Don't get me wrong, I love this place. It's just that I've seen so many 'made-for-tv' type movie productions set up in downtown Calgary, I've taken it as just par for the course. Anyways, back to my story...

Passing by the trailers, I heard a girl's voice that sounded an awful lot like "Meg" from "Family Guy".

"Excuse me, you gotta light?"

"Um, sure.", I suavely said, reaching into my back pocket for my Zippo like James Bond would, if he had a back pocket. Checking the girl out. Dark, curly hair, slightly Slavic features, about five two, five three. Amazing pale grey-blue eyes. Dressed for Canadian winter. Nearby, an Andy-Dick-resembling P.A. had what I assumed was her pug-dog on a leash. I realized then I hadn't had a smoke since I got home from work, and didn't have any on me.

"Er, Here ya go, eh, you gotta smoke on you?" Real smooth and James Mason-like, Tom.

"Sure, that's a fair trade, smoke for a light. Hang on.", she perked, hopping into her trailer, then hopping out again.

"It's American, if that's alright."

"Hey, fine with me."

She proffered a smoke to me while using my Zippo to light hers. Gee, she was pretty, in a Jackie-from-That-70's-Show kinda way.

"Thanks, here's your lighter."

"You're welcome, have a good 'un." And so I continued to the store, lost in thought about the movie industry while she fussed over her pug-dog. Man, that girl was nice. And cute. I guess aspiring actresses 'nic-out' like everyone else. That girl kinda looked like Mila Kunis. Prettier, though.

Didn't think much of it 'til I got to work that evening, flipped through the paper before my shift started...

The Hell? What's THIS article?

"...and shooting in town, SOME RANDOM ACTOR GINK in "Straight-Edge" also starring MILA KUNIS?..."

Holy shit! I bummed a smoke off MILA KUNIS? MEG? Man, if I had known, Id've become Gibbering Starstruck Fanboy then and there! Can I take your picture, Miss Kunis? No one's gonna believe I met "Meg" from "Family Guy"! Why'd you do "American Psycho 2: Electric Boogaloo?" What's Macaulay Culkin got that I don't, anyways? Seth McFarland should give 'Meg' more to do in "Family Guy", dammit! Shee...

Mila Kunis smokes Parliaments. They taste terrible.

Borat: Cultural Learnings Of America For Make Benefit Glorious Nation Of Kazakhstan

(Forward: I've been selected to host a review/response to the "Borat" movie by the Deputy Minister of Cultural Affairs in Kazakhstan, a fellow by the name of Gennedy Y. Yaktusk. Hence, my interruption of my Top Ten Movies list. Enjoy...)

Hello to all North Americans, and Alaska, too! I am Gennedy Y. Yaktusk, Head Deputy Minister of Cultural Affairs based in the very fine (and cosmopolitan!) city of Alma-ata! I hope you are doing fine, and cordially invite you all to visit our splendid homeland! This unfortunate movie starring Sascha Jew Baron Cohen, has perhaps perpetuated many vile stereotypes of my proud country. I, of course, realize it is humorous satire, and were Jew Cohen's repellent television anchorman based in say, Ashkhabad or Tashkent, I would not, how you say, "be batting an eyelid". But he presents a racist, hairy stereotype of Eastern Europe as backward, ill-bred, and overly sexyful. Such is not the case, I most hurriedly assure you! The Jew Baron Cohen displays beloved Kazakhstan as anal opening of a country with dirt, straw, in-breeding, and keeping of billy-goats on straw roofs. I chuckle in condescending manner to think of Kazakhstan being portrayed in such an ill manner.

Were you, gentle viewer, to come to visit lovely Alma-ata in the spring, you would gape and slap your forehead in astonishment! Here you will feel you are in bustling major Western city, like Berlin or London or Saskatoon! Here you see paved roads and amber streetlights in fine working order! And upon our streets you will find the young peoples with their Ipods listening to "The Jets" and "The Franz Ferdinand" while "getting down" upon the sidewalk (clear of feces, I hasten to add) with their "fresh" Nike-brand trainers. We host many Western companies here, providing cheap, industrious labour to make your Xboxes and Adidas to be enjoyed by even Negros! I, myself, am proud owner of 2001 Ford Escort with Blaupunkt stereo. So, you see, Jew Baron Cohen and director Larry Charlestein's cheap shots at small but proud Kazakhstan fail like Lesotho football club into FIFA series!

Jew Baron Cohen portrays idiot newsperson to America with fat hairy mutant producer to learn "America" from "Jew York City". This is foolish on face of it. Perhaps, if Jew Cohen stop to think of it, would not Kazakhstan have good "vibe" with America owing to our plethora of Satellite T.V.? Perhaps, in fairness, would Vice-President Richard Cheney be coming to Alma-ata to witness our modern, progressive state? (an aside: there is no "Running of the Jew" festival anywhere in Kazakhstan, on account of the last Jew report was back in 1942. Foolish.) Suddenly, he is taken by image of prominent she-male, Tommy-Lee Anderson, mistakes him for a woman, falls in love, and lies to his producer to pursue unnatural relationship with Lee-Anderson transsexual in Los Angeles.

Along the way, Borat (Jew Cohen) encounters many examples of America, where he takes cheap shots at gun owners, etiquette teachers, rodeo owners, and antique store owners. Maybe America should be protesting "Borat", instead, eh? I note with disgust the scene where Jew Cohen and fat mutant hairy producer get into "Royale Battle" in their apartment, and roll about in homo-erotic display of fat, hairy, sweaty display of hairy, fatty, fatness. I still shudder at widescreen hairy man-buttocks being offered for my supposed amusement. Finally, he is arrived in Los Angeles, and tries to "kidnap" Tommy-Lee Anderson, with expected results. He does, however, find true love with American Negro prostitute, whom he marries and takes back to homeland.

This type of humor, I am to admit, is 'hit and miss'. A sequence with White Peoples dinner club seems unnecessarily cruel, since the people who are the "joke's butt" are guilty of nothing more than your famous "Southern Hospitality." (Silly Jew Cohen! In Kazakhstan, we have much knowledge of flush toilet in which to deposit feces! Also, is proper etiquette to procure Negro prostitute after dessert!) It is one thing to mock the pompous and ignorant, like racist rodeo owner and drunken fraternity-boys who bemoan end of slavery. It is quite another to humiliate people over their need to be friendly and accommodating. Ultimately, the laughs are low indeed. Almost as low, say, as someone impersonating the fractured-English style writing of an non-native English speaker in order to review a movie.

Thank you, and good day! God Bless Kazakhstan!

(Afterword: Turns out this 'Gennedy' guy is a hoax. He tried to hook me on one of those "Nigerian 409" scams, later on. As for what I thought of "Borat", Boy, was it mean, but I laughed like an idiot through most of it. My only serious quibble- It was pretty easy to tell which encounters were scripted, and which ones were real. That kinda threw me off...)

Top Ten list, Number Three...

Pulp Fiction- Yeah, yeah, yeah. You knew this'n would be on my list, wouldn't you? After all, one can't claim to be a member of Generation X without owning this movie, now can one? First off, having looked at all of Tarantino's work from 'True Romance' to his guest spot on 'Sin City', I've come to a conclusion about him. He's the filmmaker equivalent of an idiot savant. That is, one of those guys who can recite plane schedules or carve horses out of soap bars but can't tie their own shoes or boil water. Is that a 'dis'? No. First off, I couldn't carve a horse out of a bar of soap if I had my life to live over again. Also, I couldn't take the essential pop thrill one gets from the movies and condense it into a coherent whole. Which is what 'Pulp Fiction' does.

Tarantino bends genre conventions into loops and distills the thrills of trash films with the experimental camera-work of 'respected' filmmakers like Goddard, Trauffaut, and all the rest of the 'Cahiers du Cinema' crowd. (Who, I should point out, took their cues from American filmmakers like John Ford, Howard Hawks and Anthony Mann...) No, Pulp Fiction has no connection whatsoever to real life, and you wouldn't meet anything like the characters in the real world. But 'Pulp Fiction' connects with us.

Scenes like Vincent Vega(John Travolta) stabbing a needle full of adrenaline into the chest of his boss's wife, Mia Wallace(Uma Thurman) hold us breathless with tension. (When I first saw it in a crowded theater, the crowd was dead silent. Then a girl in the front softly muttered, 'Oh, you idiot',regarding Vincent's desperate attempt. The crowd went nuts at that comment, breaking the tension.) The scene where Jules Winfred (Samuel Jackson) and Vincent show up at Jules' friend Jimmy's house (Tarantino himself) to get out of the predicament of Vincent accidentally shooting another person in Jules' car. (that in itself, is such a shock, I almost leapt out of my seat) The dialogue between Jules and Jimmy (Haw! a Traffaut reference!) is straight out of Monty Python:

[Jules, Vincent and Jimmie are drinking coffee in Jimmie's kitchen]

Jules: Mmmm! Goddamn, Jimmie! This is some serious gourmet shit! Usually, me and Vince would be happy with some freeze-dried Taster's Choice, but he springs this serious GOURMET shit on us! What flavor is this?

Jimmie: Knock it off, Jules.

Jules: [pause] What?

Jimmie: I don't need you to tell me how fucking good my coffee is, okay? I'm the one who buys it. I know how good it is. When Bonnie goes shopping she buys SHIT. Me, I buy the gourmet expensive stuff because when I drink it I want to taste it. But you know what's on my mind right now? It AIN'T the coffee in my kitchen, it's the dead nigger in my garage.

Jules: Oh, Jimmie, don't even worry about that...

Jimmie: No, let me ask you a question. When you came pulling in here, did you see a sign out in front of my house that said Dead Nigger Storage?

Jules: Jimmie, you know I ain't seen no...

Jimmie: Did you see a sign out in front of my house that said Dead Nigger Storage?

Jules: [pause] No. I didn't.

Jimmie: You know WHY you didn't see that sign?

Jules: Why?

Jimmie: 'Cause it ain't there, 'cause storing dead niggers ain't my fucking business, that's why!

I should also point out the camera work by Andrzej Sekula. Notice how it nervously follows the characters around in long takes. Roger Ebert points out how it seems anxious to return to the main action when Vincent and Jules break off to discuss the implications of a good foot massage early in the film. The only real criticism I can bring to "Pulp Fiction", is how Tarantino influenced a whole sub-genre of 'Tarantino-esque' film-makers who ran the gamut from okay(The Usual Suspects) to god-awful(Boondock Saints).

Seven Samurai

Depending on my mood, either this or Dr. Strangelove is my favorite movie of all time. Having just picked up the new, expanded Criterion version,(and all it's attending extras) I'm listing 'Seven Samurai' as my favorite. (for now...)

There are no emotionally complex characters-odd for Kurosawa. There's no deep moral theme running through it. On the surface, we've all seen this type of 'Guys-on-a-mission' type movie before, right? But this is the one that created that whole sub-genre. If I were a pretentious twerp, I'd be inclined to tie this movie in to Kurosawa's Dostoevsky influence. You know, fate and redemption. Trouble is, only Mifune's 'outsider' samurai is the only one that even remotely fits the bill here. No, what we got here, theme-wise, is that Japanese proverb, "The nail that stands out get hammered down." The samurai fight for the peasants because it's what their class is supposed to do. (The lead samurai's speech about 'testing ourselves in battle' rings a little hollow.) Note how at the end, the romance between the youngest samurai and the peasant girl is abruptly cut off once the village is saved.

In classic Kurosawa form, every detail is fully realized, and every blast of wind and drop of rain is there for a reason. Notice how the wind always comes up at moments of tension. The final climactic battle is set in a thunderstorm, churning up the ground into a muddy soup. The more I watch this movie, the more little details accumulate. I particularly love the scene where Toshiro Mifune tries to convince the others that he's from an actual samurai family, bringing in a tattered family scroll to bolster his claim. The leader points out both Mufune's lie and his illiteracy by bringing up the fact that the name Mufune claims as his belongs to a 13-year old. In the back we see one of the other samurai counting out the years on the scroll on his fingers, then laughing as he gets the joke at the same time the leader informs Mufune of his error.

And his editing, my God, has never been better. The first we see of the lead Samurai, played by Takashi Shimura, he is shaving his head to disguise himself as a monk. (If you wonder at the overly startled reactions of the surrounding villagers to this, bear in mind that a samurai's topknot was his badge of status. Losing it was equal to pooing one's pants in public...) He's disguising himself to draw out a thief that's kidnapped a little boy. Throwing in some food to the thief's hideout to distract him, he rushes in, there's an offscreen struggle, and then, in slow motion, the thief staggers out, the gathered crowd reacts,(in normal speed) then the thief drops dead, a cloud of dust emerging from the corpse. This technique shows up again in the fatal duel between the master swordsman(Seiji Miyaguchi) and a hot-headed samurai. I suspect it's the first time this slowed-down camera at the time of death gag's been used in cinema, and here, it's so effective. I should also point out that this is the first action movie to give us the 'reluctant hero' plot point. There's probably a bunch of other 'firsts' for this movie, but I'll find 'em later.

In closing, if this DVD isn't in your library, you suck.

A Brief Interlude...

...Let me just quickly interrupt my top ten film list here...

Over the Hedge- Dreamworks' CG animation offerings are formulaic to the point of tedium. They seem to have one story template that they use over and over again. Here's the template: Disparate group of anthromorphic beings go to a unique environment where their unity as a group is tested. During this ordeal, there will be a montage of the creatures either A) wandering sadly through the environment while a current MOR top 40 band plays a subdued melody, or B) working together to achieve a common goal while a current MOR Top 40 band plays an upbeat melody. The group will always have a 'sassy', urban-type female, and a hyper-ADD afflicted 'Nerdy' character. Two-thirds into the movie, the lead character will monologue about how his doubt or his hubris has let the other members of the group down. His confidence will be restored by another monologue by his love interest or best friend. The final message is always, "Friends and Family are the most important thing, ever." At least half the voices of the main characters will be by A-level movie stars, which simultaneously proves that Dreamworks hasn't got much confidence in these movies in the first place, and that Bruce Willis, Woody Allen, Cameron Diaz and Will Smith's voice-over work tend to flatten out their performances.

Over the Hedge continues that bland tradition. A group of disparate woodland creatures awake from hibernation to find their sylvan home is now smack dab in the middle of suburbia. A cocky raccoon, voiced by Bruce Willis, sells them on the easy pickin's in suburban garbage cans, thus assuaging their fears over a steady food supply. Turns out the raccoon is using the other creatures to gather food for him so he can pay back a mean bear (voiced by Nick Nolte) whose food supply the raccoon demolished. When the animals are captured by a psychotic exterminator and a monomanical home owner, the raccoon has a change of heart and rescues them, thus learning that "Friends and Family are yadda yadda."

I'm setting all this up because Over the Hedge has one gag which has to be the funniest thing that I've seen this year in a movie. The aforementioned ADD-Nerd character in this case is a squirrel named Hammy voiced by Steve Catrell in a standout performance. (Spoiler alert) During the movie, a minor running gag is that given his twitchy, nervous personality, caffeine-laden drinks would be the last thing Hammy should partake in from the bounty of food the animals are stealing. When the raccoon rescues the other animals from their capture by the exterminator, they are stuck in the hedge between their forest home and the aforementioned homeowners' lawn. On one side is the now-angered bear, and on the other side stands the exterminator and the homeowner, both parties intent on destroying the woodland creatures. The raccoon and the leader of the animals, a turtle voiced by Gerry Shandling, bemoan their fate and wish for more time to resolve their dilemma. (At that point, fireflies light up over their heads.) They give Hammy a full dose of hyper-caffeinated soda, and he saves the day.

What sends this gag over the moon is it's reversal of expectations. We expect to see a hyper-cut montage of the squirrel frantically running about, subduing the bear, the exterminator, and the homeowner in the space of a few seconds. What the movie gives us is a slow, leisurely display of Hammy's altered perceptions in his hyper-caffeinated state. Time stops while he casually trots to the semi-lethal animal trap on the owners' lawn, sets it off, non-chalantly sets up a cage trap next to the bad guys, and makes a detour to grab a cookie on top of the homeowners' house. ("Hm-mm...I gots a cookie") While Hammy is doing all this, the lasers on the lawn move at a snail's pace. (End spoilers)

I was laughing so hard, I almost passed out. (My diaphram still hurts.) The comic saint Michael O'Donoghue pointed out that great comedy jumps a step, and that's exactly what happens here. It's unfortunate the rest of the movie doesn't match up to that scene, but having my lowered expectations surpassed is part of why I was laughing so heavily.

My Favorite Movies of All Time- Part One

Okay, let's get this done...

Dr. Strangelove- It's been said that there's two types of satire: satire from the outside and satire from the inside. Satire from the outside condemns the priest for teaching a false religion. Satire from the inside condemns the priest for not following the teachings of his religion. Or, to be more succinct, Dr. Strangelove is a movie about how the guardians of democracy are infantile madmen; while the movie, "How to Succeed in Business without Really Trying"(released at about the same time) is about how them ad execs really like their coffee breaks.

I'm not one to critique a movie like an olympic judge, but to my mind, Dr. StrangeLove is about the most successful example of black comedy in film that I've ever seen. Other examples of black comedy like Fight Club or Wag the Dog tend to lose their nerve most of the way through the picture. My understanding is that Kubrick was preparing to direct a straight adaptation of the novel, "Fail-Safe". In the course of his usual through research, he found that U.S. foreign policy involving nuclear deterrence was more absurd than an Alfred Jarry play. "Mutually Assured Destruction", anyone? So he then got the help of master comic writer Terry Southern to work with him on the screenplay.

The tone of the movie is of a mouth contorted into a rictus grin, small beads of sweat appearing on the upper lip. Every part is played straight, with no broad comic strokes whatsoever. (Well, George C. Scott plays his role of the overenthusiatic general pretty broad, but, C'mon. It's George C. Scott!) Peter Sellers, the master of sinking into a role, handles three different parts with aplomb. He's ineffectual President of the United States, Merkin Muffey,(note the effeminate name) Group RAF Captain Lionel Mandrake, the voice of reason to the insane General Jack D. Ripper, and what is to me possibly the most absurd character ever to appear in film, the Dr. Strangelove of the title. Reportedly, he was also pegged to play the B-52 group commander, Major Kong.

Notice the character of General Jack D. Ripper(Sterling Hayden), the insane head of the air force base that orders his bombers to attack Russia. He's not your stock madman. He doesn't rant and rave at the top of his voice. His tone throught the whole movie is one of calm, ordered, well-thought out logic. His rationale for beginning the attack makes sense, if you're a right-wing paranoid. It's only when he reveals his abhorrence for floride treatments in water (actually, there's a reasonable rationale for being opposed to floridation, but I'm not going to go into it here...) that we (and Captain Mandrake) realize that Ripper's gone off the deep end a long time ago:

General Jack D. Ripper: Mandrake, do you realize that in addition to fluoridating water, why, there are studies underway to fluoridate salt, flour, fruit juices, soup, sugar, milk... ice cream. Ice cream, Mandrake, children's ice cream.

Group Capt. Lionel Mandrake: Lord, Jack.

General Jack D. Ripper: You know when fluoridation first began?

Group Capt. Lionel Mandrake: I... no, no. I don't, Jack.

General Jack D. Ripper: Nineteen hundred and forty-six. Nineteen forty-six, Mandrake. How does that coincide with your post-war Commie conspiracy, huh? It's incredibly obvious, isn't it? A foreign substance is introduced into our precious bodily fluids without the knowledge of the individual. Certainly without any choice. That's the way your hard-core Commie works.

Group Capt. Lionel Mandrake: Uh, Jack, Jack, listen, tell me, tell me, Jack. When did you first... become... well, develop this theory?

General Jack D. Ripper: Well, I, uh... I... I... first became aware of it, Mandrake, during the physical act of love.

Group Capt. Lionel Mandrake: Hmm.

General Jack D. Ripper: Yes, a uh, a profound sense of fatigue... a feeling of emptiness followed. Luckily I... I was able to interpret these feelings correctly. Loss of essence.

Group Capt. Lionel Mandrake: Hmm.

General Jack D. Ripper: I can assure you it has not recurred, Mandrake. Women uh... women sense my power and they seek the life essence. I, uh... I do not avoid women, Mandrake.

Group Capt. Lionel Mandrake: No.

General Jack D. Ripper: But I... I do deny them my essence.

And there's Peter Sellers' President Merkin Muffey (such a great name!) His monologue with the drunken Russian Premier is like a Bob Newhart sketch:

President Merkin Muffley: [to Kissoff] Hello?... Uh... Hello D- uh hello Dmitri? Listen uh uh I can't hear too well. Do you suppose you could turn the music down just a little?... Oh-ho, that's much better... yeah... huh... yes... Fine, I can hear you now, Dmitri... Clear and plain and coming through fine... I'm coming through fine, too, eh?... Good, then... well, then, as you say, we're both coming through fine... Good... Well, it's good that you're fine and... and I'm fine... I agree with you, it's great to be fine... a-ha-ha-ha-ha... Now then, Dmitri, you know how we've always talked about the possibility of something going wrong with the Bomb... The *Bomb*, Dmitri... The *hydrogen* bomb!... Well now, what happened is... ahm... one of our base commanders, he had a sort of... well, he went a little funny in the head... you know... just a little... funny. And, ah... he went and did a silly thing... Well, I'll tell you what he did. He ordered his planes... to attack your country... Ah... Well, let me finish, Dmitri... Let me finish, Dmitri... Well listen, how do you think I feel about it?... Can you *imagine* how I feel about it, Dmitri?... Why do you think I'm calling you? Just to say hello?... *Of course* I like to speak to you!... *Of course* I like to say hello!... Not now, but anytime, Dmitri. I'm just calling up to tell you something terrible has happened... It's a *friendly* call. Of course it's a friendly call... Listen, if it wasn't friendly... you probably wouldn't have even got it... They will *not* reach their targets for at least another hour... I am... I am positive, Dmitri... Listen, I've been all over this with your ambassador. It is not a trick... Well, I'll tell you. We'd like to give your air staff a complete run-down on the targets, the flight plans, and the defensive systems of the planes... Yes! I mean i-i-i-if we're unable to recall the planes, then... I'd say that, ah... well, ah... we're just gonna have to help you destroy them, Dmitri... I know they're our boys... All right, well listen now. Who should we call?... *Who* should we call, Dmitri? The... wha-whe, the People... you, sorry, you faded away there... The People's Central Air Defense Headquarters... Where is that, Dmitri?... In Omsk... Right... Yes... Oh, you'll call them first, will you?... Uh-huh... Listen, do you happen to have the phone number on you, Dmitri?... Whe-ah, what? I see, just ask for Omsk information... Ah-ah-eh-uhm-hm... I'm sorry, too, Dmitri... I'm very sorry... *All right*, you're sorrier than I am, but I am as sorry as well... I am as sorry as you are, Dmitri! Don't say that you're more sorry than I am, because I'm capable of being just as sorry as you are... So we're both sorry, all right?... All right...

The film itself is Kubrick at the height of his powers. His bone-dry wit, his sly little gags, (note how General Turgidson's 'secretary' is the Playboy Centerfold that one of the B-52 crew ogles on duty. 'Peace is our Profession' on a sign in the besiged air force base, looking over several dead soldiers, "Gentlemen! You can't fight in here, THIS is the WAR ROOM"...) his deadpan camera shots. It's unfortunate how Kubrick's later work ossified these skills of his into empty technique, but for this movie and the earlier 'Lolita', they served the subject matter well.

A Couple of Misfires...

The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift- Nnnggh... It's amazing how much Tokyo resembles Southern Los Angeles, isn't it? I'm comparing this franchise to the porn movie franchise, since they both drop in the story as an afterthought to why people are REALLY watching these type of movies. However, the race scenes in this case disappoint since the way they're set up don't build any tension or release in the audience. As a travelogue to an exotic land, it falls apart as well, since it was pretty much filmed in L.A., and you don't get any sense of dislocation. (The only idea we get the lead is in a foreign country is a brief bit where he doesn't understand Japanese for 'slippers'.) My Japanese-Canadian roommate also informs me that: 1) Japanese classrooms don't have cafeterias, 2) Non-native speakers don't take school classes with everyone else, 3) Not every Japanese native speaks fluent English, 4) The lead character's Navy officer dad couldn't possibly afford to live in Tokyo on what he makes, 5) and so on...

Lucky Number Sleven- For this type of 'Thriller-with-a-twist' to be successful, you can't see the twist coming in the first fifteen minutes of the movie. Also, Josh Harnett seems incredibly miscast. He's one of the most inexpressive actors this side of Steven Segall. We need to feel the character's mounting tension to draw us in, and he doesn't do it. Also, if you're going to cast powerhouses like Ben Kingsley and Morgan Freeman, give 'em something to do besides monologue behind a desk. And finally, is it just me, or is Bruce Willis starting to turn into Christopher Walken?

Coming up... An exceedingly anal list of my top ten (well, thirteen) movies of all time, and why... (list subject to change)

Happy Birthday, Jody!

Just a quick shout-out to my brother, Jody. He was born 32(?) years ago on this very day.

Have a good one, bud.

On South Park...

South Park- It's been my favorite comedy show for the past few years, and I was getting ready to write this as an ode to its many joys. Then season ten was broadcast, and it occurred to me how much South Park has matured, and not always for the better. Outside of the two-parter 'family guy' episodes and the 'dog-whisperer' one, so far season ten's been its most uneven. Let me run down a brief history of its development as a series.

The first few seasons of South Park were crude, (in both writing and execution) and relied on fart humor and non-sequitur jokes to fill space. (Robert Smith of the Cure? Why?) In the course of the series, they grew in skill and depth. Cartman's character stood out for me as an embodiment of all that was evil. And of course, hilarious. There were no depths that to which he would not sink. (faking his hand as a younger, sassier version of Jennifer Lopez, tricking an older kid into eating his parents, organizing fans of that fuckin' Mel Gibson S-and-M Jesus movie into Neo-Nazis, obtaining fetuses so he could have his own Shakey's pizza restaurant, the list goes on...) Trey Parker and Matt Stone learned to strip off the jokes that didn't work (killing Kenny got old real quick) and their comedic timing became impeccable. One aspect of their production became invaluable to them. Owing to the quick turnaround time(a week) of producing their show, they could comment on current events almost immediately, an impossibility in more traditional animated shows like the Simpsons.

It turns out that Parker and Stone's need to comment on current events is starting to become a liability as much as an asset these days. Consider the episode where Cartman merges, Tetuso-from-the-anime-Akira-like into his Trapper Keeper. The subplot was over a row in kindergarten regarding the election of a class president. This was run at about the time of the first presidential election of the Usurper, and was meant as a commentary of the colossal fuckup at the poll booths in Florida. (The undecided vote in the classroom is a little girl named Flora.) The thing is, unless you have a vested interest in the politics of 2000, the subplot slows down the show. In five years, anyone who watches the episode where Kenny's body is in a coma while Cartman fights the other boys to turn off Kenny's life support so Kenny won't be in an undead limbo,(actually, it's to get his PSP-this is Cartman, remember) won't instantly make the connection to the Terri Schalvo case. And even more recently, in series 10, the story of the hapless Towelie's attempt to break into the publishing world mirrors the scandal of James Frey's misleading drug rehab memoirs. Remember? No? The ground is practically disappearing under Parker and Stone's feet...

Which brings me to another beef I have with the show. Parker and Stone's politics could be described as 'Libertarian-lite' That is, they're fundamentally conservative with a liberal outlook on social issues. Their point of view in these post-liberal times is that if we can all agree to split the difference, we'd all get along much better. The problem is, liberals and conservatives these days consider each other's side as an outright betrayal of America itself. Right now, it seems like Parker and Stone are more into pushing buttons, especially liberal ones, than having anything relevant to say. They've got a bug up their ass especially with global warming. (They don't believe it exists.) You can argue that the media is blowing the concern for global warming out of proportion. You can't argue that global warming doesn't exist. In five years, I'll be sure to head down to the flooded Los Angeles basin on my jet-ski. When I find Parker and Stone floating on their raft over what used to be Santa Monica Boulevard and drinking their urine, I'll tell 'em, "TOOOLLLLD YOOOOOU SOOOOO!" When you start using your cartoon show as a format to grind your various axes, you wind up alienating your audience, especially since they came in expecting to be entertained.

Nonetheless, It's contained some of the funniest moments that I've ever seen in my life on television, and because this seems like the fan-boy thing to do, here's a list of my personal top-ten favorites: (in no particular order...)

"A Woodland Critter Christmas"- In the ultimate piss-take of every generic, sentimental, cloying, Rankin-Bass Christmas special, Stan discovers a gaggle of adorable woodland creatures straight out of Central Casting preparing for the birth of the savior of all woodland critters. Stan gets reluctantly charged with the task of slaying an 'evil' mountain lion trying to kill the porcupine mother. After completing his mission, he discovers the critters are devil-worshipers, and the mountain lion was good. When he tries to stop the Anti-Christ from coming into being, he finds the critters have taken Kyle as a host for the spawn of Satan. They defeat the critters, with some help from Santa Claus, and it turns out the whole story was a tale told by Cartman during their school class' storytime period. It was also yet another excuse for Cartman to rip on Kyle for being Jewish. "And everyone lived happily ever after! -except for Kyle, who died of AIDS, two weeks later!" "Goddamm you, Cartman!!"

"Trapped in the Closet"-It's easy to see why Scientologists hate this episode.(Stan takes an e-reading and is discovered to be the reincarnation of L. Ron Hubbard.) If you got the full news up front, you'd get your money back, A.S.A.P. Also, I've never been too fond of Tom Cruise as an actor, myself. He's essentially played one stock character his entire career (smug asshole getting his comeuppance) and his recent firing of his publicist in favor of his Scientologist sister was a bad move. The best form of satire, it seems, is to just let the facts speak for themselves.

"Casa Bonita"-Cartman goes to psychopathic lengths to prevent Butters from attending Kyle's birthday party at a popular family restaurant in Denver. It seems Kyle has finally wised up to Cartman's behavior and attempted to disassociate himself from Cartman. Eventually, Kyle relents and gives Cartman the caveat that if Butters can't attend, Cartman can take his place in the party. Naturally, this sets off the chain of events involving Cartman trying to remove Butters from the picture. You can imagine Parker and Stone setting up the scenario; "Well, so he can't actually KILL Butters, but anything else is fair game!"

"Scott Tenorman must Die!"-The first episode that illustrated the true depths to which the depraved Cartman would sink. After teenager Scott Tenorman sells Cartman his pubic hair,(since Cartman is too naive to understand one grows ones own 'pubes', Cartman feels that owning pubic hair, even someone else's, is a sign of maturity) Cartman spends the entire episode trying to exact a cartoon-cat-and-mouse revenge on the older boy. Things take a twist into the Grand Guiginol when Cartman feeds Scott his own dead parents in a chili cook-off.

"Butter's very own Episode" -If Cartman is my favorite character, then Butters is my second favorite. He's the yin to Cartman's yang, as it were. Naive, good-hearted, considerate, obedient. In the world of South Park, he hasn't got a chance. It seems everyone knew a kid like this in school. He's the kid who gets sent to the principal's office simply because he was in the wrong place at the wrong time. This episode has poor Butters trying to return home after his mom fails a murder attempt on his life. Seem's Butter's dad was experimenting with homosexuality, and mom went all Andrea Yates on Butters. This is kind of sadistic, but I loved the end of the "Jared has Aides" episode, where both of Butter's parents hurry home to beat on him after the foul-mouthed Cartman fools them into thinking he's Butters. "Aw, man! If I were a little older, right now, I'd be soo jackin' it!" exclaims Cartman, seated in front of the Butters household with snacks.

"Cartoon Wars"-The best one of season ten so far. It rips on the recent Danish cartoon controversy, as well as the slack-assed 'writing' of the 'Family Guy' cartoon. Cartman heads to L.A. to convince the Fox network to not show the latest 'Family guy' episode, which is alleged to depict the Muslim prophet Mohammed. Cartman's rationale is that this will set off a wave of violence throughout the Muslim world, while he really just wants 'Family Guy' off the air 'cause he hates it. Kyle also heads to L.A. to stop Cartman, since Kyle is a fan of 'Family Guy'. Look for Bart Simpson as a special guest. Turns out that the 'Family Guy' writers are a bunch of manatees who grab random pop-culture references from one side of a water tank, then put them in a slot on the other side of the tank.

"AWESOME-O"-Another Cartman-vs.-Butters episode. Cartman dresses up as a personal robot for Butters, in order to trick Butters into spilling his personal embarrassing secrets to Cartman. The whole thing backfires when Butters reveals to 'AWESOME-O'/Cartman that Butters has a video of Cartman dressing up like Britney Spears. In a turn of events, Butters and Cartman find themselves in L.A., working for a movie studio cranking out story ideas for Adam Sandler vehicles. A good premise that goes off into orbit. Cartman gets busted, and the final scene is everyone laughing at Cartman while the Britney video is played...

"The Passion of the Jew"- With Mr. Gibson's recent arrest in the spotlight,(with his drunken anti-Semitic ravings) this episode manages to retain its relevance. After viewing Gibson's 'Passion of the Christ' movie, Cartman is moved, of course, to dress up like Adolf Hitler and begin a movement to exterminate the Jews. Meanwhile, Kyle, having seen the same movie, is moved to doubt his people's beliefs. And finally, Stan and Kenny do the right thing and head to Mel's place in Malibu and rightfully demand their ticket money back. (If you could do this in the real world, the Wachowski brothers would be currently cleaning my kitchen... Anyway...)

"Stupid Spoiled Whore"-If, like me, you've never understood the interest that's surrounded Paris Hilton, this is the perfect episode. She's a non-celebrity celebrity in the ultimate sense. Unlike previous hanger-ons, like Bianca Jagger and Kevin Federline, the only real talent that Paris Hilton has ever displayed in her life was to slither out of the vagina of a member of the wealthy Hilton clan. Her 'fame' came about in a reality show called 'The simple life' in which she and another giggling, mean-spirited piece of useless dog shit (who's only talent was that half of her squirted out of the nutsack of Lionel Ritchie), traveled the country working menial jobs in the service industry. The humor in that series, of course, was that while for most Americans, working these jobs fed their families and gave purpose to their lives, for Hilton and Ritchie, it was a fate worse than death. Actually, I'm lying when I say I don't get Paris' appeal. Most people regard her with the contempt I do. And some people regard her with the same contempt, but also because they feel that life's greatest injustice is that they themselves do not have Paris' selfish, cruel, greedy lifestyle. If America is to become a religious fundamentalist state, the upside is that people like this will either be shot, or sent to work for 18 hours a day in Revolutionary China-style 'reeducation camps'. I can only dream...

"All About the Mormons"-It's the inverse of the 'Scientology' episode, really. Parker and Stone just let the facts speak for themselves again, this time regarding the creation of the Mormon faith. In this case, since the majority of Mormons don't follow the goofier aspects of their faith, and focus on the positive, character-building values, they come out on top in this episode. The Mormon kid, Gary, seemed like such a good character. Why didn't they use him again?

So there you are. Whether season ten is a turning point for the show remains to be seen. Its high points remain Cartman, and especially his interactions with the hapless Butters. If South Park wants to remain topical, it would do well to realize that satire is a precision instrument, and not a sledgehammer.

More movies, ...And comics!

Movies:

Lady in the Water- Well, it's not the worst movie that I've ever seen in a theater... M. Night Shaymalayan's little homage to fairy tales falls apart on so many levels it's not even entertaining in a 'MSt3k' way. A water sprite comes to Earth to inspire a writer (M. Night Shaymalayan-ho,ho,ho) to publish his masterwork. She then has to rely on the help of several different denizens of an apartment complex to return her to her world.
The whole film is a homage to Shaymalayan's self-indulgence. (Note the blatant rip on film critics...) Shaymalayan's shallow well of ideas is starting to run dry. Surely actors aren't such a rare breed that he had to cast himself in a pivotal role?

Clerks II- Kevin's Smith's saving grace is that he just doesn't wear his heart on his sleeve, he builds a giant costume of a heart and climbs inside. The question is, where does he go from here? Degrassi High: the movie? For what it's worth, the story's pretty solid, his stock cast does their job well enough,(Rosario Dawson blows everyone else out of the water, truthfully) and his gags are pretty funny. What's a little 'inter-species erotica' between friends, anyway?

Comics:

Acme Novelty Library #16 and The Acme Novelty Library Compendium - Given the glacial pace of his output, I'll probably be coming up on fifty by the time Chris Ware finished this little epic. On the other hand, it's Chris Ware, so you can count on me lining up for each and every one. I'd have to say that Ware's the flat-out best pure cartoonist working today, and I can prove it on a slide rule and a tablet of graph paper. Right now, it appears to be the prologue as to how the two geeky characters, Rusty Brown and Chalky White came to meet and be friends. Like all social outcasts, their friendship probably won't be based on mutual interests as much as that there's no one else to hang out with. Friendship by default, as it were. Chris Ware is possibly the most ANAL artist in history, so much so that I was concerned his sense of draftmanship would overwhelm the story. Not so, in the Rusty/Chalky prologue. The 'building stories' piece near the end, however, may diagram into incoherence. Like I said, however, I'm in for the long haul.

The Compendium is a collection of all the ephemera from his 'Jimmy Corrigan' stuff in the previous Acme Library issues, and I'd have to say it's literally impossible to read in one sitting. (I had to buy a magnifying glass, so's to enjoy it more fully.) I'm being facetious here, but I'm starting to get worried that Ware might wind up the 21st century equivalent of that 19th century cat artist, Louis Wain. (After Wain was committed to an asylum, his cat portraits became more and more geometric and abstract as to become indecipherable.)

Rocco Vargas - Spanish cartoonist Daniel Torres does a pastiche of the 'Terry and the Pirates'-style adventure genre, and it comes out good. If Torres had done it tongue-in-cheek, it would've been unbearable. In playing it straight, he reminds me that the old-fashioned adventure serial was a genre I didn't realize I missed. In this day and age, the only way you can pull it off without appearing too hokey is by putting an 'ironic' spin on it. (Like the Incredibles, Venture Brothers, the Tick...) My understanding is that Torres is an illustrator dabbling in comics. When commercial illustrators get into the comics medium, you get a terminal case of 'inventing the wheel'. By learning more from Milt Caniff then Will Eisner, Torres makes a solid, enjoyable yarn.

Ego and Hubris: The story of Michael Malice -The appropriately named Malice was a peripheral influence in Harvey Pekar's 'Our Movie Year'. After getting to know the guy, Pekar decided he deserved his own book. He's a self-involved near sociopath who proudly brags about the petty acts of revenge he's enacted against bosses or co-workers who've wronged him. During the course of the book, we learn about Malice's personal philosophy. (is there any doubt Ayn Rand figures heavily into his values?) We also get the subplot of Malice writing a screenplay about a semi-obscure rockabilly band from the 80's. I don't think Malice is evil, just really self-involved. (Malice's reaction to 9/11 was a little shocking to me, though) Here's the thing: Being witness to all of Malice's acts of corporate vengeance, I got the impression that this is par for the course in contemporary American business culture. It's taken as a given nowadays that anyone in business who's even moderately successful has gotten to where he is by being under-handed, scheming, and engaging in outright criminal behavior. I suspect Pekar's picked up on this as well, which is why Malice's corporate behavior is played up so prominently.

Johnny Ryan's output-Ca-ca and Poo-poo humor done well, if such a thing is possible. It's hard to go away offended, since Ryan saves his most savage beatings for the 'comics-as-art' elite. Case in point: one panel of Art Speigleman saying, 'It's not boring enough! I have to borify it even more!'

Schitzo #4 - In the released-ages-and-ages-ago Schitzo #2, Ivan Brunetti prints a letter from comic shaman Jim Woodring, where Woodring predicts that once Brunetti burns off the bitterness, self-hatred and nihilism from his work, Brunetti will be a force to be reckoned with. Woodring was right, except for one thing. Brunetti's mindset would've literally killed him if he didn't seek professional help, which he did. The price Brunetti pays for survival is an infrequent output. In the grand scheme of things, it's not a big tragedy. And in the case of a major talent like Brunetti, some art is better than no art at all, and a little goes a long way.

Stuff I hate that everyone else likes...

A few weeks ago the Onion's A.V. Club (the only bit on the site I'm inclined to read nowadays) had a short bit entitled, "Classic Movies it's Okay to Hate". A poster on the site pointed out that this is the type of 'controversial' piece usually saved for Entertainment Weekly or Us magazine. They list Network, The Shawshank Redemption, Star Wars, A Clockwork Orange, The Exorcist, Fantasia, Caddyshack, Roger and Me, Carrie, and The Big Lebowski as talking points in their theme. Fair enough, but it kinda got me thinking. I'm sure everyone has their "Pfft. You gotta be kidding!" moments when it comes to popular movies (and t.v. shows), so I thought I'd just beak off on mine...

Network- I'm totally on board with their assessment of this one. Paddy Chaefsky's script is smug, self-righteous, and condesending. Coming out when it did, in the 70's, beating on televison would be like beating on a cripple in a wheelchair with one hand tied behind his back. Every character is shrill and didactic. It's Chaefsky's passive-aggressive revenge on an industry that didn't kiss his fat ass enough in the thirty-odd years he wrote for it. Of particular contempt: Max Schumacher's (William Holden) wife's speech to him after he informs her of his affair with Diana Christensen(Faye Dunaway). Up to this point, she's been essentially a non-entity in the film. After Max confronts her over his infidelity, we get this bit of histronics...

"Get out, go anywhere you want, go to a hotel, go live with her, and don't come back. Because, after 25 years of building a home and raising a family and all the senseless pain that we have inflicted on each other, I'm damned if I'm going to stand here and have you tell me you're in love with somebody else. Because this isn't a convention weekend with your secretary, is it? Or - or some broad that you picked up after three belts of booze. This is your great winter romance, isn't it? Your last roar of passion before you settle into your emeritus years. Is that what's left for me? Is that my share? She gets the winter passion, and I get the dotage? What am I supposed to do? Am I supposed to sit at home knitting and purling while you slink back like some penitent drunk? I'm your wife, damn it. And, if you can't work up a winter passion for me, the least I require is respect and allegiance. I hurt. Don't you understand that? I hurt badly."

Boo-fuckin'-hoo. Then she drops off the face of the movie. The actress, Beatrice Straight, won a best supporting actress Oscar.I envision Chaefsky sitting in front of his typewriter, cackling to himself about how he'd love to see the faces of every network executive when they screen his little magnum opus. What was his reaction, I wonder, when Network got all those Oscars in '77? It's too bitter and heavy-handed to work as satire. In an interview at the time, he disingenously claimed that, "he wasn't writing satire; all t.v. execs aspire to be Diana." Bullshit.

I'd argue the Onion's other choices are just attacking mainstream entertainment for doing its job. I mean, come on, no one is going to compare The Shawshank Redemption to, say, Renoir's Grand Illusion. And their take on 'The Big Lebowski' is wrong. Just. Plain. Wrong.

So here's some of my other personal picks for Movies (and T.V.) that everyone likes but I think suck:

Napoleon Dynamite- I am told that this is a comedy. I am told that the title character is a loveable outsider with a eccentric family. I've been told it is a coming of age tale that takes a loving look at growing up in small-town Idaho. I had to turn this movie off about two-thirds of the way through. The main character comes across as a victim of Asperger's syndrome in such a chronic manner that he could replace Dustin Hoffman's Rainman character. When another student crushes his cache of tater tots in his cargo pants, I felt a small twinge of pleasure at Dynamite's abuse. Because the character is closed off from everyone else in the film, you can't empathize with him. In the South Park t.v. show, one comedic bit is to have a character say or do something incredibly absurd, then cut to a reaction shot of other characters giving that character a blank stare of hostile incomprehension. The whole movie of Napoleon Dyanamite's humour is essentially relying on the audience staring blankly in hostile incomprehension at the goings on in the movie. There's another bit where Dynamite is part of an extracuricular school club called 'singing hands', where he and some blank-faced girls wave their hands about to sappy new-age music. There's a cut to their audience, some other blank-faced students. (If we had got a shot of a student snickering at this display of absurdity, followed by being cut short from a faculty member's disapproving stare, THAT would've been funny.) I felt exactly like those kids after watching this.

Sex and the City- It's been mentioned that if a man truly wants to understand women, he will watch this show. In theory, it has a lot on its side; modern single women seeking sexual gratification for its own sake, and not suffering any backlash or societal disapproval for their actions. It's not hard to figure out why it was so popular during its run. The main characters have vibrant, successful lives, and the conflicts that they face in the course of the show are the type of problems that their audience would give their eye teeth to have.

The problem for me, after I bit the bullet and actually watched a few episodes, is that it's like some odd disease swept through Lower Manhattan and removed any trace of empathy or selflessness or altruism from every single human being in that region. While some of the dialogue is clever, I'm reminded of a point the television writer, Maria Semple, made. If anyone ever said to her even one of the things that the people on sitcoms routinely say to each other she would probably burst into tears and go running out of the room. When the four main characters get together to 'dish' about their love lives, I got the impression that they hung out together not because they had formed a sisterhood of like-minded mutually suportive libertines, but that the unspoken agreement amoungst them was, "I'll endure listening to all your petty whinging, but in return, you all have to listen to my epic life story, because I am such a fascinating and unique person, and no one in history has ever faced the dillemas and struggles of me." It would've been more interesting a series if it was revealed that the four main characters in fact, hated each other, and sought to undermine the others at every opportunity. In reality, I've endured self-obsessed 'tards like this many a time in my life, and the only reason they aren't dead, or beaten within an inch of their lives, is because it's illegal for me to inflict damage on them...

As an example, one of the episodes I saw had as it's plot the dilemma Carrie Bradshaw faced when her apartment went condo, leaving her facing the inconvience of apartment-hunting in Manhattan. In steps her boyfriend of three months, offering her to move in with him. Just as she is about to accept, her friend Meredith reveals that Carrie's boyfriend went shopping with her for an engagement ring for Carrie. (Why Meredith didn't try and give Bonehead the "aren't you moving kinda fast?" speech isn't explained.) I missed the rest of the story, but let me guess-Carrie finds her own place, refuses boyfriend's offer of marriage, Samantha makes some comment about her cooze you'd expect to come from a crazy homeless woman of sixty, The End.

I hate to get all preachy on you, but if this show, is in fact, how all women everywhere aspire to be, then I must chop my genitals off and fling 'em into the ocean. It's based on a series of columns by a woman named Candace Bushnell, written, no doubt, in the same smug,devil-may-care-hurray for sexuality tone of the series. I can't help thinking, however, about some single mother in the midwest stuck making under twenty four grand a year at her shitty, dead-end job with no real free time for a social life watching this show and being made to feel like she's not only missing the party, but that she's not welcome in the first place.

...And more stuff...

Kiss, Kiss, Bang, Bang- Shane Black does a parody of Shane Black movies, and by god, it works. Robert Downey Jr. plays a New York B-and-E man of the hopeless fuckup variety transported by a fluke to Los Angeles. He's being groomed for a part in a movie, and Val Kilmer plays a private eye, Gay Perry, who's coaching him on 'private eye stuff'. The consciously chaotic plot is something about a prominent producer's daughter's stand-in getting killed, so the real daughter's lawsuit against her dad is dropped, or something. Actually, if you
don't pay attention to the plot, you'll have a better time. The whole movie is a self-conscious take on the cliche's of Black's action-movie genre. Lovable fuck-up hero, straight-laced sidekick, cute girl in peril, it's all here. I'm more willing to go with it here then in, say, Kevin Smith's work, mainly since Smith's self-consciousness in his films comes across as whiny and defensive. Plus, Black's stock in trade, coming up with zingers for his characters, has never been better. Part of the fun for me was figuring out Black's mindset in writing this. Why is Gay Perry, well, gay? So there wouldn't be any conflict over Michelle Monaghan, the dame who's the pivot of the plot. Also, because in traditional Hollywood, gay is shorthand for 'sexually non-threatening, but gets all the best lines'. As he's gotten older, Val Kilmer's starting to get some of the mentor roles usually reserved for Liam Neeson. He's too boyish to ever have been a successful leading man, anyway.

It's unfortunate how drug abuse fucked up Robert Downey's career, but in this role, it seems to have given him a much needed humility. If Downey had played his character as smug and world-weary, the whole movie would've crashed on take-off. His tone through the movie is shellshocked, and his little bits of twitchy delivery send his role off into the sky. It's like everyone in the movie is in on a private joke, and Downey's character's attempts to get in on it make the gag that much funnier.

Venture Brothers- Did you ever wonder what Johnny Quest, boy adventurer, would've turned out as when he grew up? Me neither, actually. Venture Brothers takes a 'The Tick'-like premise, (Boy adventurer grows up, becomes under-achieving pill-popper, has two sheltered teen sons and a frightenly competent sidekick) and actually does something with it. I suppose the comparisons to 'The Tick' were what kept me away from it for so long. Well, now I'm a fan. While the stories have the same 'heros in their underwear doin' their laundry' theme that the Tick had, the writing is much sharper, (Christopher McCulloch, the series creator, worked on both the animated and live-action Tick) and the understated Alex Toth-inspired design is perfect. Another thing; unlike Family Guy, when Venture Brothers dives into 'non-sequitur' gags, they actually connect with the characters. It's the type of series that can only get better with time.

Tom's Media Round-up, Part 3

Television:

Samurai Champolo- The anime invasion into North America has left me mostly indifferent towards anime as a genuine creative outlet. You watch enough of this stuff and it all starts to blur together. My antipathy towards it is due to the utterly undiscerning tastes of anime fans. (I suspect Japanese fans are as low in their standards as audiences are over here.) Quantity over quality, as they say. Anyone wanting to see what all the fuss is about might watch, say, Yugi-oh, or Inayusha and quite understandably, give the rest of the subgenre a pass. Which is a shame, since Samurai Champolo isn't going to get the casual viewer as an audience that it deserves. It's a solidly crafted piece of work, about an unemployed waitress in 1880's Japan on a search for her father, accompanied by two very different swordsmen that she's hired as bodyguards.

The thing is, given the limited financial resources animation's given in Japan, stuff like Samurai Champolo and Ghost in the Shell: Stand-Alone Complex wind up being the 'prestige' titles of animation studios, when ideally, they should be the meat-and-potatoes of the industry. Pandering to your lowest common denominator might pay off in the short term, but in the long run, you're only cutting off your nose to spite your face...

The Boondocks- "Did that little coloured boy just say 'Nigger'?" "Oh, it's okay if they say it!" Maybe it's my latent liberal sentiments kicking in, but Aaron McGruder's use of the 'n' word tends to grate on me after a while. He has to realize that racial slurs, used even in an 'ironic' context don't numb the impact of them after repeated use, as I had previously thought. Rather, it sends a message that it's okay to hurl hateful epithets at people to intimidate them, and then, when called on the rug to account for one's behavior, claim that you were 'kidding', and disingenuously attack your accusers of being 'overly sensitive pussies'. I suspect that one of the influences behind Dave Chapelle walking away from his massively successful t.v. show, besides the awesome responsibility Comedy Central was putting on his narrow shoulders, was the question that was his mostly white audience laughing with him, or at him? It's a tough thing to face for any black comedian, and the only one I've seen to even reach a stand-off was Richard Pryor. I'd be more ambivalent about Aaron McGruder, but the style choice he took in animating his comic (low-budget anime that rips off Samurai Champoloo in the opening credits) clinched the deal for me.

Deadwood- Well, it isn't 'Gunsmoke',for sure. Using the setting of the pre-annexed South Dakota gold-mining boom town, 'Deadwood', creator David Milch gives us one of the best shows on cable. It's a struggle for control between the aptly-named saloon-brothel owner/unofficial mayor Al Swearengen(Ian McBride) and upstart saloon-brothel owner Cy Tolliver(Powers Boothe). The pivot of the series is store owner Seth Bullock(Timothy Olyphant). Swearengen and Tolliver are respectively, a bad man and a worse man. While Swearengen is a thief, a cheat, and a murderer, he has an agenda to maintain order in Deadwood, mainly since too much stealing, cheating and killing is bad for business. Tolliver, on the other hand, is a locust; he swoops in from Chicago and is in the process of sucking the town dry. Tolliver is gratuitously cruel, as well. Seth Bullock, starting a drygoods store in Deadwood, falls into the position of the unofficial law in Deadwood.

Swearengen hates and fears Bullock, not only because Bullock interferes with Swearengen's plots, but because Bullock is the first real authority to make his presence in Swearengen's little corner of Paradise. For Swearengen, Bullock's arrival indicates that his days of limitless power and wealth are numbered. The series doesn't make it explicit, but I believe that America's taming of the west in the late 19th century was due to amoral dirtbags like Swearengen, but credited to decent,moral men like Bullock.

Deadwood's run into some controversy in regards to its use of foul language, and in Deadwood's case, harsh language is a vital component of the series. In the Victorian-era setting, and in the pre-civilized state it's set, swearing is done by uneducated men to denote their authority. (It's why series creator Milch put cussin' in N.Y.P.D Blue) Note how Swearengen curses the most of any other character. Note that when Bullock curses, we're genuinely shocked. I don't think the swearing in Deadwood is distracting, especially considering the care the characters put into their everyday conversations. The dialogue is literary.

Brasseye, Jam!, and Nathan Barley-the world of Christopher Morris- While 'missing the point' seems to be replacing baseball as the national pastime in the Colonies, 'taking the piss' is replacing football (that's British for 'soccer') in Dear Old Blighty. I suspect most t.v. people in Britain figure that since nobody really gives a shit about what England's point of view in global discourse is these days, British television's taken up the role of the disenfranchised A.V. high school nerd. 'Ali G' sets up the pompous to make retarded statements, and 'The Office' tore apart day-to-day workplace politics.

Dropped into this comes Christopher Morris, a acolyte of the late comedic writer Michael O'Donoghe's belief that 'making people laugh is the lowest form of humor'. Jam! was a collection of sketches so dark that light bent around them. (a six year old girl works as a Jean Reno-in-the-Professional-type cleaner, fr' instance) His most controversial series was a send-up of hysterical, melodramatic 'life-style' t.v.news magazines called 'Brasseye'. In the 'drugs' episode, he manages to get an actual m.p. propose a bill in the House to ban the made-up drug, 'Cake'. The delivery is so dry, dust hits you in the face. The most controversial episode, the special on pedophilia, essentially ended his career as a producer in T.V.

He bounced back, sort of, with 'Nathan Barley', a six-episode series depicting a column writer, Dan Ashcroft, for an urban weekly newspaper called 'Sugar Ape', Dan's sister,(a struggling documentary filmmaker) and the writer's nemesis, Nathan Barley, a self-obsessed, vulgar lout. Dan is in a constant struggle to discredit Nathan. The paradox of the tale is that whilst Dan dislikes everything about Nathan Barley, Dan achieves the least in his life and is incapable of staying true to any of his own morals making him the real 'idiot'. On the other hand, it's Barley with his own 'Jackass'-style website who's becoming more and more popular as the series continues. It's funny as hell, and believe me when I say that I've felt more and more like Dan Ashcroft as days go by...

Wonder Showzen- One of the most bizarre things I've ever seen in my life. The only way to understand it is this: Imagine a troupe of avant-guarde performance artists influenced by Amand Artaurd are approached by an NPR-type leftist production company to put on a six-episode children's t.v. show. After signing the necessicary contracts and receiving the budget, the troupe collectively realizes that they have signed a deal with the Devil and decide to put on the most vile, offensive, insane and mean-spirited t.v. show for children that has ever been conceived by the human mind. Their intent that if any human child glimpses even five minutes of their production, the child will look like a progeria victim. The production company will immediately cancel the contract, hire a Catholic priest to sprinkle the video tapes with holy water, and the avant-guarde troupe will keep what's left over of the budget. Fornicating puppets, blasphemy, and little kids asking inappropriate questions at the race track. ("Here's my impression of you, Mr. Race track tout.-'Gamble,gamble,gamble-Die.') It's got too much vitriol in it to last past a second season, but as they say- 'Take a long look at it, miss...You may never see it's like again..'(Addendum: I should, of course, point out that Wonder Showzen falls under the same category of 'shock humour' as 'Jackass' and 'the Tom Green show'. The comedy is based on 'oh-my-god-I-can't-believe-I'm-seeing-this-how-do-they-get-away-with-it?'. Once the shock wears off, the show wears somewhat thin after the first viewing.)

House, M.D. -Took me a while to watch enough of it to get an impression, but now I'm hooked. Hugh Laurie's anti-social doctor plays Sherlock Holmes while infectious diseases play Moriarty. What blew me away was Laurie's internalized performance. He's a miserable, rude, passive-aggressive asshole. When he gets shot at the end of the second season, your first thought is, 'Well, that figures..". I had taken him for granted in 'Jeeves and Wooster' and 'Blackadder' where his stock in trade was British upper class twits played for comedic value. I really didn't expect this type of performance from him. Usually in television, when you have a character like this, we get a glimpse of the soft, mushy center in the course of a show. Not in Dr. House's case. When he makes biting zingers, he's really being a prick.